weird transaction and using old electrum wallet with lightning stuff?

[berndao]

Hi,
I have basically 2 issues, first one being more urging than the other.
Sadly my knowledge is very limited about blockchain and stuff so i hope someone here is smarter than me and could help me :-)

First off, on a certain site I had earned some bitcoins and a while ago told them to sent me all the money in there.
to my electrum btc wallet.

so i took one of the adresses in the adresses tab (one of the adresses with "incoming" in the first column.
and told the site said wallet adress, so they could sent me the money.

in the wallet, the money is written there, with an (unconfirmed) behind it.

I found its block explorer site:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/e21800462a97c0fd2d1f432da244b0240c2a40d3d8c83d8549ea0807a9d95f0d

I have no idea about the stuff what is written there.
All I know is that I am supposed to receive the 0.018 btc.
no ide whats up with the insane amountof 82 btc also wirtten there.

would be nice if someone could tell me what all the stuff written there means and if or when I might receive the money finally.



my second topic is one where I basically can provide zero background.
I have had my current electrum wallet for like many years, only updating to the newest version every now and then.
have sent and received btcs occasionally(meaning: like every few weeks or month one transaction tops)
but nothing more complicated.

noiw with fees being downright heavy crime robbery nowadays, one apaarently should sent money viy some second layer thing, named "lightning network".

I have zero idea how this all works, so it would be great if someone could help me there.
I updated my electrum btc wallet to the most current 41.2 version and under view made it display all the possible tabs.

but aside from that, I have no idea what else to do, so I can conveniently sent btc via the cheap lightning network just the way I sent btc via the normal way before.

can someone please quick me a quick idiot proof noob step by step how I can configure the electrum wallet to be able to do that lightning stuff?

Also is there someplace where, given an amount of btc to be sent, I can find out how much fee is to be paid when using that lightning network stuff?

[1714111783]

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[hosseinimr93]

in the wallet, the money is written there, with an (unconfirmed) behind it.

Your transaction has already been confirmed.
At the time I am making this post, it has 4 confirmations.

no ide whats up with the insane amountof 82 btc also wirtten there.

The 82.2 BTC is the change and has been sent back to the sender.

Whenever you spend bitcoin, you have to spend the entire amount of an UTXO.
The sender used a UTXO worth 82.22 BTC for sending bitcoin to you. 0.01799 BTC was sent to you and the remainder was sent back to the sender.  

[ranochigo]

I have no idea about the stuff what is written there.
All I know is that I am supposed to receive the 0.018 btc.
no ide whats up with the insane amountof 82 btc also wirtten there.

I assume the address that you gave is 37U6mb9bepC5LpW25xCvHAj4wAZCccyLdL. The other address with 82BTC is used as their change, that doesn't concern you.

Since the transaction has 5 confirmations right now, you should be able to see the transaction confirmed in your wallet. Is the bubble at the bottom right green or red?

noiw with fees being downright heavy crime robbery nowadays, one apaarently should sent money viy some second layer thing, named "lightning network".

I have zero idea how this all works, so it would be great if someone could help me there.
I updated my electrum btc wallet to the most current 41.2 version and under view made it display all the possible tabs.

but aside from that, I have no idea what else to do, so I can conveniently sent btc via the cheap lightning network just the way I sent btc via the normal way before.

can someone please quick me a quick idiot proof noob step by step how I can configure the electrum wallet to be able to do that lightning stuff?

Also is there someplace where, given an amount of btc to be sent, I can find out how much fee is to be paid when using that lightning network stuff?

Lightning network is only beneficial if your recipient is also using lightning network as well. It is an off-chain settlement and is cheaper as it doesn't take place on the Blockchain itself. There is a more comprehensive topic written by Rath_ and probably the best material to start with; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5259973.0.

[Charles-Tim]

I have no idea about the stuff what is written there.

You should have seen the Bitcoin on your wallet, if it is electrum wallet that you are using, you would have even seen it before the transaction was confirmed, but it will be confirmed first on many other wallets before you will be notified through the balance.

It is not hard to interpret what is seen on the explorer as it is self explanatory. 

From an input of 82.22624290 BTC, this address (329koRvovTyNnd4ADrpR2uJHzXxfvKxta5) sent 0.01799319 BTC to this address (37U6mb9bepC5LpW25xCvHAj4wAZCccyLdL) which is your address. The remaining bitcoin which is the change address UTXO was sent back to the senders address. The transaction is also now confirmed.

can someone please quick me a quick idiot proof noob step by step how I can configure the electrum wallet to be able to do that lightning stuff?

I will advice you to first read very well what lightning network is before using it, it can be used in a way to make use of low fee, but you will need to open a channel with someone that agrees with you to open a channel with you. You will need on-chain transaction fee to open a channel, you will also need on-chain fee to close a channel. Read the guild below to understand more about lightning network.

A Beginner's guideline to Bitcoin Lightning Network
The Lightning Network FAQ

About electrum wallet, there has also been an improvement in recent update and also this guild will help you as ranochigo commented. Also, feel free to ask questions on the thread about anything you are not getting rightly, you will get best answers there pertaining to lightning network, especially while using electrum wallet.

Electrum Lightning Network walkthrough

[berndao]

Thank you everyone for the answers, sorry for not answering yet, I was busy.

Yeah, by now the bitcoin have been received in my electrum wallet.

Yeah, this transaction looked weird cause I am used to only seeing the paid fee and the sent amount in the explorer.
nd not some weird 82 bc worth transaction back and forth thing.
cant say I understand why the guy sent like 82btc of worth *whatever coins name* and then sent the rest back.

what did he do there, why he not just sent the 0.018 btc directly and without some surplus?

or did he already do some weird network stuff that isnt a normal btc transaction?


sorry I havent sent any btc in the last 1,5 years so maybe how things work have changed a lot .




yeah, I will read into these guides about lightning, thank you in advance.

if I got that right, I would have to open a separate channel literally each time I wanna sent money to someone via lightning?
including paying fees each time for each channel?
how high are these fees currently,. is it also calculated like with normal btc via some X satoshi per byte or some?

I will read these guides for a while till I understand how the fees are calculated when paying via lightning.

[NeuroticFish]

what did he do there, why he not just sent the 0.018 btc directly and without some surplus?

What happens when you want to buy a soda and have only a 20$ bill? Don't you pay the entire 20$ and receive 19$ back as change?
Well, this guy had a 82.22624290 BTC "bill", and, although it's not a nice round number, the concept is identical.

[berndao]

After a quick reading (I am way not done yet) I have to ask about one thing:
From what I read I could do the following:
Opening a channel with some dude B, putting in 1 btc in said channel.
Less than 1 btc will arrive due to fees but lets ignore that.

say 0.9 btc are in there.

one of the guides said that I basically cant receive more money than I have sent.

so say I have sent a total of 0.5btc to B (gotta keep a reserve for when the channel is closed),
then no matter how many transactions or amount the money i will be able to get in total cant be more than 0.5 btc.

which would put me in a predicament:
I would for example wanna sent 1 btc to B (not really, reality would be more like the 0.18 you saw)
I would sent it there cause B does investment stuff and would use my money to make it more.

so normally I would sent 1 btc to B and, after having done his job, he would sent me my deposit+profits back, say 1.1 btc.
which  would be impossible in the lightning network.

the guide said that this "how much can be received back" can be increased sometimes but didnt go into details in that part (or I havent found and read that part).

how would one handle this, when i wanna receive more money than I have sent?


also can I jsut keep the channel open forever or is it auto closed when I close my electrum wallet program?

what did he do there, why he not just sent the 0.018 btc directly and without some surplus?

What happens when you want to buy a soda and have only a 20$ bill? Don't you pay the entire 20$ and receive 19$ back as change?
Well, this guy had a 82.22624290 BTC "bill", and, although it's not a nice round number, the concept is identical.

while I get your analogy, I dont get why he cant sent the 0.018... btc exactly, like most people literally do it everyday?

if I have 1 btc in my wallet and want to sent 0.5 btc. then I jsut sent 0.5btc +fees.
and not 1 btc.

why would he not be able to do that, like what advantage would it give him to do it this way?

[NeuroticFish]

while I get your analogy, I dont get why he cant sent the 0.018... btc exactly, like most people literally do it everyday?

Sorry, but no, they don't.

if I have 1 btc in my wallet and want to sent 0.5 btc. then I jsut sent 0.5btc +fees.
and not 1 btc.

It depends how you have that 1 BTC. If you have it from one transaction (it's called one input), then you have it as "one bill" and although you tell your wallet to send 0.5BTC somewhere, it will have to send the entire BTC, just 0.5 BTC (minus fees) will be sent to an address of yours.

Also now, if you want to spend from 37U6mb9bepC5LpW25xCvHAj4wAZCccyLdL and you want to spend only 0.01 BTC from there, the entire 0.01799319 will be "sent out", just ~0.00799 will be sent to yourself.

why would he not be able to do that, like what advantage would it give him to do it this way?

If he would want to do as you say, he would have to make one extra transaction (and pay the fee) to split his money. No use.

[Rath_]

if I got that right, I would have to open a separate channel literally each time I wanna sent money to someone via lightning?

No, channels are supposed to be used for multiple transactions over extended periods of time. The LN is not perfect for every use case, though. If you just want to send an extraordinarily large transaction from time to time then on-chain transactions are more suitable for this. Note that the LN is targetted mostly at micro-payments.

hhow would one handle this, when i wanna receive more money than I have sent?

You would have to have someone open a channel to you so that the payment could go through that channel. Keep in mind that Electrum is not a good choice when it comes to inbound channels. There are custodial wallets which handle inbound/outbound liquidity for their users, but you obviously have to trust them.

When you pay someone, you gain inbound liquidity/capacity because the funds in a channel move from your side to the other person's side. When someone opens a channel to you, all the funds are on your peer's side so that's why you can receive payments through that channel.

also can I jsut keep the channel open forever or is it auto closed when I close my electrum wallet program?

As long as the other peer cooperates, channels can operate indefinitely.

so normally I would sent 1 btc to B and, after having done his job, he would sent me my deposit+profits back, say 1.1 btc.
which  would be impossible in the lightning network.

A 1 BTC payment over the Lightning Network sounds wrong. As I mentioned above, it was mostly designed for micro-payments. In fact, all channels are limited by default to about 0.16 BTC capacity. On a side note, Lightning payments can be automatically split into smaller chunks which can be received over multiple channels; that's how your 1.1 BTC could become feasible. So, if we were talking about much smaller payments, they would be feasible if you had multiple channels with some inbound capacity.

[berndao]

the 1 btc were just an example, it would be more like a one time payment of the 0.018 btc I had originally mentioned.

they whole max cap thing spunds like a big pain in the ass from my subjetiv point of view, like I always have to keep capacity in mind and how much or little can stll be received.

I am the one opening a trading channel with someone yet cant receive even 1 penny surplus from the other guy :-/

makes the lightning network kind of a pointless thing.

and if I got that write, say my first amount to sent would really be 0.018 btc.
then I would have to pay the full on chain fee for these 0.018 btc
as if I had jsut sent it the normal on chain way.
only the other guy, when sending me money back, will actually get any profit (low/no fee) out oif the thing but i aint getting any advantage out of this :-/

maybe I did misunderstand something but lightning ntwork is then quite a useless thing isnt it?
like I have top pay initially full fee for my money and cant even sent money back and forth asw much as I want, so that one could say I would have another advantage out of it.

probably great to pay your daily coffee, as it's always money away from me.
but actually receiving money back after an investment?
full fee and I have hard limits on received amounts, worse than any online casino.

[BlackHatCoiner]

maybe I did misunderstand something but lightning ntwork is then quite a useless thing isnt it?

It's not. It may not satisfy in certain conditions, but as a way to get rid of the high fees for micro-transactions, I find it really convenient. It's far from useless. Let me put this in another way, if you wanted to transact with someone multiple times, why would you broadcast all these transactions to the block chain while two of them are enough to ensure the correct balance?

This is serious. Despite the fees you will avoid, you are also making the entire procedure more practical. Can you imagine what would happen if half of these transactions in the mempool were for opening and closing a channel? It'd make things work more efficiently.

like I have top pay initially full fee for my money and cant even sent money back and forth asw much as I want

Back and forth in the channel? You can do that.

[Rath_]

the 1 btc were just an example, it would be more like a one time payment of the 0.018 btc I had originally mentioned.

As I have already written above, the Lightning Network is not designed for one time payments.

makes the lightning network kind of a pointless thing.

If the Lightning Network does not suite your particular use case then it does not mean that it is completely useless.

probably great to pay your daily coffee, as it's always money away from me.

That's exactly the kind of transactions it is supposed to be used for.

but actually receiving money back after an investment?

Still, it might be useful for traders. Some exchanges already support Lightning withdrawals/deposits. You could open a channel to some exchange when the fees are low. This way, if you decide to sell your coins when the transaction fees spike, you won't have to pay a large fee. If you make a payment to someone with who you have a direct channel, you don't have to pay any extra fees. Obviously, you won't be able to receive back more than what you sent but you will have already saved some money.